Tuesday, May 05, 2009

First Clues: Mysteries for Kids is delighted to introduce a new feature for our website, book reviews written by students. These students offer their unique perspective on the book in their review and provide a valuable resource to parents looking for new mystery adventures for their kids to read.

Review: Espionage, murder, and terrorism all intertwine as Alex Rider returns in the 6th installment of the "Alex Rider" series. In Ark Angel, written by the compelling author Anthony Horowitz, Rider once again has to outsmart and outlive his enemy, Force Three, as they terrorize the world.

While Alex is recuperating from the sniper's bullet at St. Dominics Hospital in London, four gigantic armed men come with only one mission, to kidnap the boy in the room next to his. The boy's name is Paul Drevin. The four men were coming for Paul and they needed him badly. Alex's attempt at saving Paul put him into the middle of an action packed thriller involving a war between Force Three - an insane group of environmentalists who will do anything, even murder just to save the environment, and Nikolai Drevin - one of the richest men on the planet and the creator of the project Ark Angel, the very first hotel in space. Will Alex Rider be able to save Ark Angel and stop Force Three from destroying Drevin's greatest accomplishment ever? Nothing is what it seems.

I had mixed feelings about this book. I feel that this book truly shouldn't be considered a mystery. There wasn't a mystery style in the writing, but instead it was much more like an action or thriller genre. Anybody who is picking up this book expecting a traditional mystery will be disappointed. I personally enjoy these types of books, however, and if I hadn't been reading it with the preconceived notion that it should have been a mystery it would have gone up as one of the best books I've ever read. There really isn't a major question that Rider had to find out. Most of the puzzling questions Rider has are usually answered in the upcoming chapters and are not questions like you see in "whodunits" which can span throughout the entire book. On the other hand, any Alex Rider fans or people who just love action packed page turners will love this book. It is jam packed with action and adventure that comes to life in the author's descriptions. Readers will find themselves thoroughly engrossed in the masterpiece that time will slip away. Like other Alex Rider books, you never wanting to put it down.

As I've said this book is mainly for action lovers and from an action view point it would be a five star book. But from a mystery stand point, it would be two stars because of the lack of mystery content. The total rating that this book gets is a four star rating, not because the book's quality is that of four stars, but because it really wasn't a true hardcore mystery such as Sherlock Holmes. I would recommend this book to any person who just adores action and adventure over mystery.

If you are interested in purchasing Ark Angel from Amazon.com, please click the button to the right.

First Clue Mysteries is pleased to provide information on over 100 mystery series for children and young adults. Each series is conveniently listed under three different age categories (New Sleuth, ages 4 to 7; Future Sleuth, aged 7 to 10; and Sleuth in Training, ages 10 and older). If you have a favorite mystery series you'd like to see added to our site, please contact us.

All student book reviews are protected by copyright and may not be reproduced in any manner, print or electronic, without the express written consent of the copyright owner. Reviews are published here with permission of the copyright owner.

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Lance Wright owns and manages Omnimystery, a Family of Mystery Websites, which had its origin as Hidden Staircase Mystery Books in 1986. As the scope of the business expanded, first into book reviews — Mysterious Reviews — and later into information for and reviews of mystery and suspense television and film, all sites were consolidated under the Omnimystery brand in 2006.